No, 99.99% of Jews do not do this.
Clergymen in the Armenian Church in Jerusalem say they are victims of harassment, from senior cardinals to priesthood students; when they do complain, the police don’t usually find the perpetrators.
Ultra-Orthodox young men curse and spit at Christian clergymen in the streets of Jerusalem’s Old City as a matter of routine. In most cases the clergymen ignore the attacks, but sometimes they strike back. Last week the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court quashed the indictment against an Armenian priesthood student who had punched the man who spat at him.
Johannes Martarsian was walking in the Old City in May 2008 when an young ultra-Orthodox Jew spat at him. Maratersian punched the spitter in the face, making him bleed, and was charged for assault. But Judge Dov Pollock, who unexpectedly annulled the indictment, wrote in his verdict that “putting the defendant on trial for a single blow at a man who spat at his face, after suffering the degradation of being spat on for years while walking around in his church robes is a fundamental contravention of the principles of justice and decency.”
I don’t know about you, but I’ve always been uncomfortable spitting during the Aleinu prayer. Or maybe you’re not Chabad and you don’t spit. If that’s the case let me explain this dandy little custom.
The Aleinu prayer concludes every service. And after we say the first line of this prayer, we spit. In this first line we praise the Master of all things that He has not made us like the nations of the world, nor caused us to be like the families of the earth; that He has not assigned us a portion like theirs, nor a lot like that of all their multitudes, for they bow to vanity and nothingness – [SPIT]. But we bend the knee, bow down, and offer praise before the supreme King of kings…
Now first I want to be clear that the bracketed word [SPIT] written above is not in the prayer book. I put that in just to show you where we spit.
Second, this particular line that He has not… has caused a lot of problems throughout the centuries and in some prayer books it was taken out so as not to cause trouble with the nations of the world, and it remains out.
Third, even today, there are some Jewish groups that are very upset by this line because they feel it is insulting and discriminatory to other religions and ways of life.
